Gatehouse E01: Mirrors
by thejollydoctor
Summary: Mirrors is the first story in the series "Gatehouse", a Doctor Who spin-off about the Doctor's daughter, Jenny. - After leaving Messaline, Jenny lands in Caerdid (futuristic Cardiff) where a troubled Welshman claims that the mirrors in his new property contain ghosts.
1. Chapter 1 & Prologue

Prologue:

Jenny woke up in the theatre with a sheet draped over her body and a small pillow beneath her head. Cline and Hath Gable leaned over her with bewildered expressions.

"Hello boys," she said as she smiled.

They looked relieved for a moment, but then Jenny jumped up and ran to the spaceship. She was awake and alive now, and she didn't want to miss any of the adventure. Time to see new worlds! The spaceship was sure to have a spare shuttle she could borrow.

Sure enough, the shuttle door was right in front of her, next to the comm. Hurried footsteps echoed behind her as she opened the door and climbed inside. The shuttle wasn't very big. Only two or three people could be seated comfortably, but it was just fine for her. She checked the fuel gauge and smiled as she saw it was nearly full.

"Perfect," she thought. "Time for take off."

"Jenny, what are you doing?" Cline's voice said over the comm. "Come

back."

"Sorry, can't stop," Jenny replied. She flicked a few switches on the control panel. "What're you going to do - tell my dad?"

"But where are you going?"

"Oh, I've got the whole universe! Planets to save, civilizations to rescue, creatures to defeat… and an awful lot of running to do."

Chapter One:

A minimalistic structure stood alone by a jagged cliff face above the sea. The cement foundation was cracked and crumbled around the edges. It was built on the ruins of an even older structure that had been underground until the topsoil wore away. Now it was the 61st century, and the city that had once been around it had migrated miles away from the original location. This old laboratory was all that was left of downtown Caerdid.

Jenny stepped out of her space shuttle, entirely unaware of the building's history, curious as to why it remained while everything else had moved on. It only made sense to have a peek inside.

The first room that she entered was entirely white; the walls, the tile floor, the tables on either side of the door, and the fluorescent lights that

surprisingly still worked. In the hallway was a series of doors on either side, but the door at the very end caught her eye. It was made of steel and had a padlock, but someone had left it ajar.

She wasn't alone, but it didn't bother her in the slightest. After all, you can't have a good adventure without people, can you?

She entered the room cautiously, peering around the door before pushing it open all the way. Ahead of her was a young man, frozen with fear, staring into one of the many floor-length mirrors lining the walls of the room. Jenny stepped forward to get a better look and gasped when she saw what was in the mirror. Instead of the man's reflection, a middle-aged woman's face stared back with the same expression as his.

"What is that?" Jenny asked.

The man turned with a start and swallowed when he saw her. The woman in the mirror copied his movements exactly.

"Er, the uh… mirrors appear to be… haunted," he said slowly. "You're not a ghost, are you?"

"Oh, no," Jenny laughed. "I'm just a curious passerby. What are you doing here?"

"I bought this building from the city a few days ago hoping I could fix it up. Nobody mentioned ghosts."

"I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that those are ghosts if I were you."

The sentence had come out with an ominous tone that she had not intended. The man stepped away from the mirror and the eerie reflection disappeared.

"Sorry," she said with a shake of her head. "I didn't mean to disturb you. My name's Jenny. What's yours?"

"Roland Pryce," he said quickly. "And what do you mean they're not ghosts? Do you know what they are?"

"No, but I intend to find out if you'll let me."

She stepped in front of the mirror and the woman reappeared. Jenny waved her arms and the lady did so too, at the same moment. Everything that she did, movements and expressions, were copied exactly by the reflection of the woman.

"Did you check for cables?" Jenny asked. "It might be computer generated."

"No," Roland admitted. "I didn't think of that."

He approached the mirror hesitantly and ran his fingers along the frame. When his hand reached the bottom it felt something cold and metal.

"It's a box," he said. "Like a hard drive or receiver. If we could find out what it connects to-"

"Maybe it connects to this," Jenny interrupted.

She was looking at a small screen by the door. It had been hidden behind a metal panel that was screwed into the wall.

"What is this thing anyway?"

"Certainly not a computer," Roland said after further inspection. "It's the transmitter. It emits frequencies to the receivers under the mirrors."

"So the reflections are transmitted from here?"

"No. There's no way they can be generated. All this does is operate

machines. They're told what function to perform by the transmitter."

"Then what do the mirrors do?" Jenny wondered aloud.

She looked back at the mirror-lined walls and noticed something strange. Shadows were gradually creeping in around them, but not a single person was in sight. She squinted her eyes and saw that the shadows were actually dark, foggy creatures. They were shaped like humans, but she couldn't make out their features.


	2. Chapter 2

"Roland!" Jenny tapped his shoulder and he turned around.

"You certainly seem to know a lot about these machines," the darkest

shadow said to Roland. His voice was rough and sinister.

"Well, I took several courses in mechanical engineering," Roland replied. "So I'm sort of an engineer."

"That is useful. Perhaps you can help us find what is wrong with them."

Jenny sensed something was wrong and stopped Roland from replying. The mirrors were of use to the creatures somehow, but why were there people in them?

"What do you mean?" Jenny asked. "What are the mirrors for?"

The creature started walking closer to them and the other shadows

followed. Roland leaned in toward Jenny's ear to tell her something.

"We can't see their faces, but they have forms. Perhaps they're wearing perception filters,' he whispered. "Whatever they are, they're definitely not nice. What should I do?"

"You?" Jenny laughed. "Stay here." She took a small knife from a pouch in her belt and ran over to one of the mirrors. She held the knife up to the glass with a clenched fist and looked over at the creatures. "Hey, you!" she shouted. "Don't take another step, or I'll break this mirror. You don't want that, do you?"

The creatures halted and simultaneously turned their heads to look at her. They stood perfectly still, thinking, and then backed out of the room.

Jenny lowered her arm and put the knife back in her belt. "Okay, Pryce. We need to think fast. Those things have gone to rethink their approach, but they could be back any minute. What are the mirrors and why do those creatures need them?"

"As far as I can tell they're just random mirrors with creepy people in them and a frequency being directed at them," Roland shrugged.

"Well you're very helpful!" Jenny scoffed. "We need to figure out what the frequency is for. Look around for papers about the machine. This used to be some kind of laboratory; there has to be a file on it."

She walked over to the transmitter and read the screen. Several numbers were listed, along with occasional letters, none of which were in order. At first she assumed these must be the frequencies, but then realized the length of the numbers were wrong.

"Roland, what do you think these numbers mean? They can't be the

frequencies," she called back to him. He had been rummaging through a desk on the other side of the room.

"What are they?" he hollered back. "Read them off to me."

"Zero four sixteen nineteen forty-two A, fifty-one point five N, zero point one W…"

"That's weird."

"That's just the first string. The next is 'zero six fourteen twenty zero eight A, fifty-one point four N, three point two W'."

"They're very similar. Possibly identification codes for the boxes beneath the mirrors. How many strings of numbers are there?"

"A dozen or so, I'd say."

"That's about how many mirrors there are," Roland noted.

He had shuffled through the last drawer, and was beginning to doubt there was a file, when he sat in the rickety desk chair and looked down at his boots. Underneath the desk was an old briefcase with the initials "I.R.C.M." printed on it. He bent down to pick it up and set it on the desk. Dust billowed around him.

"What's that?" Jenny asked.

"A briefcase. Says 'I-R-C-M' on it."

Jenny stood behind him and watched eagerly as he opened it and removed the contents.

"Files!" she said triumphantly. "I told you there would be some. Look for that transmitter thing."

"Jenny, this whole file is about the transmitter. Look."

Roland held up the folder for her to see. Printed on the file were the words 'Inter-dimensional Reflective Control Module' and on the first page was a blueprint of the transmitter and the mirrors.

"Inter-dimensional reflective control module," Jenny mused. "What does that mean? It controls dimensions?"

"Not exactly," Roland replied as he read on. "It controls the mirrors, which are gateways to other dimensions - the dimensions of space and time."

"Time travel! That's amazing. Who invented it?"

Roland turned the page and skimmed over the paragraphs. "Isaiah Roscoe Cayton Montgomery, evidently. He finished building the I.R.C.M. around twelve years ago. Sounds like a self-centered bloke to use his own initials for it."

"That's an awfully long name," Jenny commented. "I don't like it."

"To be honest, I don't either. There's a picture of him here." Roland pointed to the page. "It gives me the creeps."

"Does it say anything about why he built it? Seems strange for one man to suddenly decide to build a time travel gateway."

"Yeah, especially when he could make a time vortex manipulator with much less trouble," Roland added. "It seems he built it with some colleagues for the 'Cayton Project'. Perhaps he wanted a device that more than one person could use?"

"It's probable, I suppose. He must've thought time travel could use an

upgrade."


	3. Chapter 3

Jenny heard footsteps on the tile floor and spun around. The creatures were back.

"Roland, get up slowly," she whispered. "Move to the center of the room."

The dark figures inched closer, stopping when they had blocked the path to the mirrors. Jenny faced the leader with one hand by her knife.

"You learn so quickly," the leader hissed. "Have you discovered what is

wrong?"

"Not yet," Jenny replied. "I don't quite understand how the machine works."

"You know what it is for. Surely figuring out how it operates is simple

enough."

"If it's so simple why can't you fix it?"

The leader grumbled softly to itself. "We have tried to fix it, but the portals remain the same. Nothing we do prevents them from harming living organisms."

Jenny was flustered by the creature's behavior. Nothing he said made any sense! If they wanted so badly to go through the portals, why not acquire a spacecraft to protect themselves? It was as if they cared more about repairing the machine than using it.

"Who are you?" she asked. "Why do you need the machine to be fixed?"

"We… are the Spectres. We cannot go through until the portals work

properly."

"What, are you superstitious or something?" Roland cut in. "The portal can't hurt you if you're shielded."

"Do not question us!" the Spectre shouted. "You know too much as it is. If you learn much more we will be forced to deal with you."

"This thing has an attitude problem," Roland whispered to Jenny. "Should we try to scare them off again?"

"No," Jenny replied. "That will just anger the leader. Wait until he's gotten something he wants."

"What would that be? We don't know how to fix it! We don't even know

how it works."

The lead Spectre had his head tilted as if he was listening in on their

conversation. He had not moved or interrupted them, which disturbed Jenny more than it encouraged her. She wondered what she could possibly know that the Spectre might need, and then she remembered the numbers on the control module.

"Zero four sixteen…" she mumbled, "nineteen forty‑two A."

A memory clicked in her mind and her eyes widened. "It's the date,"

Donna's voice echoed in her mind. "Oh! It's the New Byzantine calendar!" the Doctor shouted.

The Spectre noticed she had realized something and turned its head to look at her.

"Roland, what's the date?" Jenny asked out loud.

"The 25th day of July, 6012," he replied, somewhat confused.

"Or, possibly, zero‑seven, twenty‑five, sixty‑twelve, A," Jenny said. "The first half of the number string was the date. 'A' stood for 'Anno Domini'."

"What about the second half?"

"Possibly coordinates. Where would '51.5 North, 0.1 West' be?"

"Somewhere in London, I think."

"Then the first portal leads to London on the 16th of April, 1942."

"Wow," Roland breathed. "Not bad. How did you figure that out?"

"When encountered with strange numbers that you don't know the meaning of, check to see if it's a date."


	4. Chapter 4

"That is enough from you." The lead Spectre growled, taking quick steps toward Jenny. The others followed him and encroached around her.

"Get away from her!" Roland shouted. He tried to pull the Spectres away, but his hands went right through them.

The lead Spectre grabbed Jenny by the throat and dragged her to the nearest mirror. She made quite a fuss, tearing at him, and even giving him a good punch in the face, but it didn't stop her from being shoved into the portal and suspended.

"What did you do that for? She hadn't done anything to harm you!" Roland breathed heavily, trying not to panic. Now what was he supposed to do? He didn't know how to get Jenny out so she might be stuck there forever.

"She knows too much, and so do you," the Spectre said. "If you escape you could tell all of Caerdid what you have learned, and our plans would be ruined."

He advanced on Roland, who searched the room for a decent weapon. A chair was just within his reach, but what could that do against a group of shadow monsters? His hands went through them with no effect, and the chair would likely do the same.

The Spectres were nearly upon him when he spied Jenny's knife on the floor a meter away from him. He dodged the creatures and made a dive for it, just in time.

"Stay back!" he shouted as he waved the knife in front of him.

He was on the other side of the mob now, although he couldn't see how he managed it, so he backed up to the control module.

"I can make a portal form around you and you'd all be suspended in it!" he threatened. "Don't come any nearer."

"You said you did not know how the machine works," The leader scoffed. "You're bluffing."

"You wanna bet? Now that I know what the numbers are I can work it out in seconds. All I have to do is change the coordinates."

The Spectres stepped back and stared at Roland, trying to figure whether he could do it or not. Roland glared back, which seemed to confirm their suspicions, and they left the room.

Roland looked closely at the module's screen and read the settings. Twenty sets of dates and coordinates; twenty mirrors. He tapped the first string of numbers and pressed a green button. Much to his surprise, the first mirror's surface changed from a glossy reflection to a window leading to a spinning vortex.

"Blimey," he gasped. "Okay, so that's not how you reset the coordinates."

He tapped the coordinates again and pressed an 'up' arrow that changed the date of the portal to the next month. When he pressed the 'right' arrow he was able to change the day; pressing it again allowed him to change the year, and so on.

"Oh, I see! Green button to activate, side arrows to select, and the 'up' and 'down' arrows to change,' he whispered. "Gosh, that's simple. You'd think there would be some kind of pass code."

Now that he understood how the machine worked he was able to relax and think about the situation. He looked at the mirrors lining the walls and realized that the Spectres must have come through one of them.

"Which one is it, I wonder?" He paced across the room, scanning the mirrors for distinguishing marks. He had reached the end of the room when he noticed something strange. "Wait a minute, that was nineteen. Why am I only counting nineteen mirrors?"

He scanned the walls again, this time concentrating harder on the spaces between the mirrors. He nearly walked past a spot that seemed to be empty, but turned and squinted at it. There was a mirror hanging there with a perception filter around it.

"Just like the Spectres'. They must have come through here!"


	5. Chapter 5

Jenny opened her eyes to see hazy lights swirling around her. She was drifting in the vortex, but had somehow remained conscious.

"Maybe it's because I'm not human," she thought.

She tried to move and found that she could. She raised her right arm and then her left. The portal had absolutely no effect on her. She turned around and found that the consistency of the vortex was much like fog; it could be waded through. Ahead of her was a dim light, which she presumed to be the end of the portal, and she moved towards it.

As she stepped into the new world she was greeted by the smell of saltwater and city noise. She was in the middle of an urban square somewhere by the sea. There were more pedestrians than vehicles, which struck her as quite interesting.

"This must be very long ago," she observed. "Probably sometime around the beginning of the third millennium."

Jenny did a double take as she realized she had not been generated with this knowledge. She was only given military information, so how did she know what time period it was?

She watched as the pedestrians went by, each one knowing who they were and where they intended to go. She almost felt sad for a moment, standing perfectly still in front of the portal. She was alone and unsure of herself, unlike most of the people walking past her.

One particular pedestrian caught her attention. He had short dark hair and a long trench coat- a seemingly normal appearance. Only, something about the way he walked suggested that he had a large amount of confidence and a very serious mission to complete.

Jenny looked on as he walked past her, to a spot on the sidewalk, and vanished. She gasped. Where did he go?

She ran over to the place where he had been standing and looked around. Nothing. A large building to her right had the words 'Creu Gwir Fel Gwydr O Ffwrnais Awen - In These Stones Horizons Sing' inscribed on it.

"Gibberish," Jenny thought. "That proves it, then. I'm either going insane or I'm further back than modern English."

She looked down at the spot where the stranger had disappeared and then back at the portal. Around her no one had reacted to the man's disappearance, nor did they currently take notice to her strange behavior.

"Maybe I imagined it all. My perception must be fuzzy from being inside the portal."

She glanced around her to see if there were any inconsistencies in her vision. To her left was a tall water feature that mirrored her surroundings. She examined it, then looked behind her, and saw that the reflection was normal.

"He was real," she told herself. "He had to be."

Whether she liked it or not he was gone now, and there didn't seem to be a way to follow him. The only thing that made sense to do was to go back to the laboratory and record the coordinates. She could come back and

investigate later.

Jenny turned around and headed back to the portal. She was slightly disappointed that an exciting mystery had got away from her so easily, but was assured that an equally exciting puzzle was waiting for her at the

laboratory.

She poked her head out of the portal and glanced around before stepping into the room. The Spectres had gone and Roland was examining the IRCM file at the desk. He gave an exclamation of surprise when he saw her.

"Jenny! You're alright? How did you get out?" He ran up to her and checked for signs of illness.

"Evidently the portal doesn't affect me like it does humans."

"Oh. You're not human?" Roland seemed vaguely surprised, but it wasn't too unusual for aliens to come to Caerdid. "What species are you then, if it's all right to ask?"

" A Time-something-or-other. Dad wasn't too clear on the subject. He said I wasn't quite what he was."

Jenny picked up a pen from the desk and walked over to the control module. She found the coordinates for the portal she had been thrown into and wrote them on her arm.

"Do you know what species your mother was?" Roland asked.

"I'm a generated anomaly- he was both my parents."

"Ah, right. You were born from a progenation machine. Did he give the usual 'you're just a reflection of a real time-thing' speech?"

"Something like that."


	6. Chapter 6

"Did you find out anything about the machine?" Jenny asked.

Roland nodded. "I know how they work and how to relocate the portals. If we have to I can even surround this room with them to keep the Spectres out."

"That's good," Jenny smiled. "But it probably won't be necessary. Let's have a look through the rest of this place and see if we can find out what those creatures have been up to."

She led the way through the door that the Spectres had come from and into a kitchen. An island counter was just in front of them with a stove and microwave oven across from it. A sink and fridge were along the wall to their right.

"These appliances look fairly new," Jenny observed after switching on the light. She opened the fridge door and found that it was stocked with food. "All fresh."

"That's not possible," Roland said. "This place hasn't been used in at least ten years."

"Ten years? Who used it ten years ago?"

"The city used to rent it out. The last tenant stopped paying rent about ten years ago, so the city put it up for sale. They were considering demolishing it when I came along, so I got it for cheap."

Jenny closed the fridge and turned on the stove. The burner gradually turned red from the heat. "It still works," she said, "and you say the tenant stopped paying rent? Presumably it was Isaiah Montgomery, so why didn't he take his belongings with him?"

Roland stared at the flaming burner while he thought. "Perhaps he left in a hurry because the Spectres came and frightened him off?"

"Possibly, but why didn't the city clear out his things?" Jenny switched off the burner and opened the microwave oven. The inside smelled of pizza. "And," she added, "why would the Spectres want to stay here after so much interference?"

"I don't know," Roland shrugged. "They obviously want that machine fixed for some reason. Maybe they put the city people in mirrors to get them out of the way."

"That doesn't make sense. The city would have sent special agents or military personnel if they noticed their people kept disappearing, and Montgomery had no reason to leave if he could trap the Spectres in a portal." Jenny's eyes widened. "He could've trapped the Spectres in a portal."

Roland stepped forward. "What is it? That's a realization face. What did you figure out?"

"How did the Spectres get here?"

"Through one of the mirrors. I forgot to tell you, but I found it while you

were in that portal. It was hidden by the same kind of perception filter that they use."

Jenny frowned and patted Roland on the cheek. "You're a good boy,

Roland, but I'm afraid we've been conned. The Spectres couldn't have come through a mirror unprotected without being suspended, and I haven't seen a single spacecraft since I came here except my own."

"What?"Roland's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"Someone has disguised himself with a perception filter and planted a similar one on a mirror to throw us off track. This same person has been secretly living here, keeping the fridge stocked and the appliances working. I assume he only intended to stay here until he could get the machine working but, since he's had no luck over the last ten years, he tried to get us to help."

"What about the city officials?"

"Oh, God knows what happened to them."

Roland stammered as he tried to take in the situation. "Don't you want to find out?" he managed to ask.

Jenny nodded and grabbed his arm. "Let's confront this 'Spectre', shall we?"


	7. Chapter 7

Jenny tugged on Roland's arm, dragging him back into the laboratory. She stood in the center of the room and began shouting for the Spectre to come out of hiding. "Come on, mister‑ I want to speak with you!" she hollered.

A shadow approached slowly from a far corner, checking for traps before stepping into the room. It was followed steadily by varius lighter shadows. For the first time Jenny saw what the Spectre really was. It was nothing more than one man with his appearance split and scattered into shadows by a perception filter. That's why she had been able to punch the lead Spectre, while Roland's hands went straight through the others.

"You called?" the Spectre sounded perturbed.

"We know what you are," Jenny said. "You can take the perception filter off."

The figure hesitated before reaching to switch off the device on his belt. His appearance normalized to reveal that he was Isaiah Montgomery, the inventor of the IRCM. Roland gasped, and Jenny smiled.

"I must say, your plan was brilliant," Jenny gushed. "Would you mind explaining it to my somewhat confused friend?"

Montgomery cleared his throat and began his tale. Twelve years before he had rented the laboratory and used it for his experiments in the Cayton Project. He had worked with his colleagues for two years to perfect the module before testing it. When he thought the machine was ready his colleagues stepped into the portals and became suspended.

"I had no idea that the portals might be dangerous," he explained. "I expected them to function similarly to a vortex manipulator."

"Instead your coworkers were exposed completely to the vortex," Jenny added, "and you stopped paying your rent around that time. Why?"

"I didn't want anyone investigating my colleagues' disappearances, so I made it seem as if we had skipped town. I continued to work with the portals in hopes of freeing them, but nothing worked. When you came I thought you might notice something I hadn't."

Roland stood behind Jenny, completely baffled. "What I still don't understand is how you fended off the city officials."

"The perception filters," Jenny and Montgomery said in unison.

Montgomery looked flustered. "Yes, when the inspector came I placed them around all of my belongings so the place would look empty. I figured the city would try to sell the building, which would buy me more time. I never expected someone to actually buy it." He glanced at Roland and then turned to Jenny. "That's why I disguised myself with the filter and invented the 'Spectres'. I had hoped to frighten you off. Now I am glad that you came, because you can tell me how you escaped the portal. That's all that really mattered to me. My colleagues take precedence to science."

"Well, that's nice," Jenny said. "Now we can rescue them all and turn you in to the police."

"Jenny! Don't scare the man," Roland interjected. "He was only trying to help his friends, and it's probably too late to save them now."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

"Besides that, I'd like to have a look at that perception filter of yours,"

Roland said to Montgomery.

The frightened scientist tossed Roland the perception filter and made a dash for the front door. It was too late to save the Cayton Project, and the only thing left that he cared about was himself. Anything was better than prison; he was getting too old for that.

"Come back here!" Roland shouted. He tossed the filter to Jenny and ran after the middle‑aged man.

Montgomery may've got a head start, but Roland had the advantage of youthful speed. When he caught up he tackled the man and restrained his arms behind his back. Jenny followed closely behind.

"Good grief, Roland," she sighed. "I hope you didn't hurt him!"


	8. Chapter 8

"I'm sorry, Mr. Montgomery, but whether you think you're in the right or not you've still broken the law," Jenny apologized. "We have to turn you in to the authorities, and what happens after that is none of our business."

Isaiah Montgomery was sitting on the desk chair in the laboratory with his hands tied behind his back. Roland was on the phone with the police, pacing back and forth with the perception filter in his hand.

"Jenny," he said after hanging up the phone, "I think I recognize this filter and, if I'm right, it's an illegal model."

"Really?" Jenny glanced disdainfully at Montgomery. "That's another charge to put on the list."

"Oh, all right, I admit I'm guilty of many things," Montgomery grumbled, "but before I spend the rest of my life in jail, could you do one thing to ease my conscience? Try to save my colleagues. They're completely innocent, and if you can rescue them I'll be contented."

"How would we do that?" Roland asked. "Wouldn't they have died by now?"

"Not necessarily. The vortex is cut off from the rest of time and space," Jenny commented. "I should be able to jump in and pull them out."

"But if the vortex is separate from time, does that mean they might not have aged?"

"Well, it would be rather unusual for them if they fell unconscious and woke up ten years older than they were before." Jenny strode over to the first mirror she had seen. The reflection of the middle-aged woman reappeared and she tilted the mirror for Montgomery to see. "Is this how she looked when you last saw her?"

"Why, yes. That's Jill Hubert," Montgomery said. "I never did understand why that reflection appears. It didn't use to."

"I suspect it's a subconscious recognition of her presence in the vortex," Jenny guessed. She replaced the mirror on the wall. "She's absent from space and time, but she's also behind this mirror. Our minds recognize that she's there and register her as a reflection because it makes sense in the context of the mirror."

"But it's not really a mirror," Roland pointed out.

"No, of course not. That's a side effect of the perception filter, isn't it?" Jenny turned to Montgomery for an explanation.

"I don't know what you mean," Montgomery insisted.

"Oh, come on. Think! What do perception filters do? They change the way you perceive things. You, Mr. Montgomery, placed perception filters on these portals when the inspector came by. When you took them off a side effect caused the portals to look like mirrors. This entire apparition is just a trick of the mind caused by poorly functioning perception filters. It's really no wonder they're illegal."

Roland leaned against the desk and crossed his arms. "That makes sense," he said. He looked at Montgomery. "I'm beginning to see why you chose the name 'Spectre'."

Moments later sirens blared outside and the police came knocking on the door. Roland helped Montgomery to stand and led him to the foyer.

"Could you detain them for a while?" Jenny requested. "I'm going to rescue these people real quick, and some of them may need ambulances."

Roland nodded in agreement and went to the door. Two policemen stood on the doorstep and held up their badges.

"Officers Morris and Hanley," one of them said. "We received a call about a trespasser. Which one of you is the owner?"

"That'll be me," Roland replied. He took some papers out of his jacket pocket proving his purchase of the property. "I came by to see if everything was in order and found this fellow snooping around." He nudged Montgomery forward. "He tried to make a run for it so I had to tie his hands. I hope you don't mind."

Roland continued to clarify the situation while Officer Hanley inspected the documents and Morris took notes. He explained everything that had happened, excluding information about the IRCM.

"So, let me get this straight," Officer Hanley said. "You come to check your property and this guy, who used to rent the place years ago, was still here messing with illegal perception filters?"

Roland nodded. Behind him Jenny had just entered the foyer. "Excuse me," she panted. "There are some people in a back room that may need ambulances. They've been sedated for a while and I fear it's had an effect on their nervous systems."

Officer Morris broke his pencil and stared at Jenny, who was still catching her breath. "This is one messed up case," he remarked.


End file.
